A nation facing an existential threat often turns to political alliances and wealth for salvation, abandoning moral and spiritual guidance. When the people actively push away Divine instruction, God responds with a sharp rebuke. The people had grown tired of God and demanded that the prophets stop speaking in the name of the Holy One of Israel. In a direct response, God addresses them using the exact title they tried to silence [אברבנאל, מלבי״ם]. God, who helps those who place their faith in Him, rebukes the nation for choosing to trust in evil instead [רד״ק]. They completely rejected and mocked the honest warnings and true visions brought by His prophets.
Rather than leaning on Divine guidance, the nation placed its confidence in wealth acquired through robbery, violence, and the twisting of justice [אבן עזרא, רד״ק, שד״ל]. The primary approach among commentators explains that this internal corruption served a specific political purpose. The people oppressed the wealthy to extort funds, gathering bribe money to send to Egypt in hopes of securing military aid against the threat of Assyria [רד״ק, מצודת דוד, שד״ל, אברבנאל]. This oppression was rooted in a deep sense of crookedness [שד״ל] and represented a total breakdown in how the people treated one another [מלבי״ם].
The nation's behavior is widely understood as a complete deviation from the straight path, characterized by shameful and mocking conduct [רש״י, מצודת ציון, אבן עזרא, שטיינזלץ]. This crookedness manifested as the actual perversion of the legal system [רד״ק] or as direct offenses against God [מלבי״ם]. Alternatively, this crookedness might not just describe the people's actions, but rather serve as a direct reference to the King of Egypt himself, a corrupt ruler to whom they sent their bribes [מצודת דוד, אברבנאל].
Ultimately, the people's misplaced faith operated on two distinct levels. They held an internal feeling of trust in their hearts, but they also took practical action, physically leaning and depending on the stolen funds to save them [מלבי״ם, מצודת ציון].